Jonathan Monk
Antipasti
New York City, USA: Flat Fix, 2016
[86] pp., 5.88 x 8.25”, spiral-bound
Edition size unknown
A lesser-known artist book that contains A4 printouts of other artists’ works that were used as source material for Jonathan Monk’s series of Restaurant Drawings (see previous three posts).
The series uses Instagram brilliantly, the way good artists (including Monk) made use of the postal system in earlier mail art projects. Monk dines with his family, draws or paints on the receipt and then posts the image to his Instagram feed. A buyer is selected at random from the people who leave comments indicating their interest. The chosen person sends payment and Monk mails the drawing.
“The finished drawings have all been sold for the price of the meal they represent. The owners of the drawings have (on occasion) fed myself and my family over the last year or so…” Monk notes.
The premise reminds me of a great 2001 text work by Ben Kinmont that reads:
SOMETIMES A NICER SCULPTURE IS TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE A LIVING FOR YOUR FAMILY
which refers to enveloping his side-hustle as an antiquarian bookseller, into his larger artist practice. The scan below Kinmont sent to me almost two decades ago for inclusion in the Art Metropole Commerce By Artists title, which I was editing at the time.
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